Serbian People

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT SERBIAN PEOPLE - PAGE 5

By Bratimir Ilic, President, Serbian Cultural Club of St. Sava | December 18, 1996

The failure of Soviet-style communism brought democratic movements to the forefront in much of Eastern Europe, including Serbia. There was a widespread acknowledgment by the people that their current system was a failure, so they looked to the example of democracy as the best way to improve their lives. Beyond broad democratic principles, however, there was little consensus on how to restructure civic life. Many competing political parties emerged, each with a different agenda and with a different base of support.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, the leader of Yugoslavia's largest republic, said Saturday that his republic no longer recognized the authority of Yugoslavia's presidency. Milosevic's decision, which he said was an effort to save Serbia from an "anti-Serbian coalition," has drastically worsened the country's political situation and has generated widespread fears of a possible civil war. "As of last night, Yugoslavia entered the final phase of its agony," Milosevic said in a brief television address.

As a Serbian-American, I cannot do justice in describing the outrage that I feel after reading the April 20 editorial "History will judge Serbs on Kosovo." Your patronizing portrayal of Serbian people biting the American hands that feed them is inexcusable, and your assertion that the rallies in Belgrade protesting the NATO bombing express "solidarity with Milosevic" and "an endorsement by ordinary Serbian citizens of his crimes" is unforgivable. Do your daily editorials backing Clinton's actions in the Balkans express solidarity with all of his views?

Croatian police exchanged gunfire with Yugoslav army soldiers at Zagreb's airport on Saturday, and holdout Serbia agreed to a European Community peace proposal hours before the EC deadline for acceptance took effect. Serb militias and the Serbian-dominated army continued their attacks on the beseiged eastern Croatian city of Vukovar Saturday, as fighting flared in several other towns across Croatia. Seven people were reported killed in Vukovar and at least 20 wounded. And in their first clash in the Croatian capital of Zagreb, army soldiers and Croatian police fired on one another after Yugoslav military planes forced down two airliners, from Romania and Uganda, to search for suspected arms.

In a belated echo of the struggles to free Eastern Europe a decade ago, the people of Yugoslavia rose up as one Thursday to oust their dictator, President Slobodan Milosevic. What a breathtaking sight: Hundreds of thousands of Yugoslavs who poured into the streets and seized the federal parliament in a "People's Revolution" to liberate their isolated nation from the grip of a war criminal. The protest--by hardy miners, black-cloaked Serbian Orthodox priests and intoxicated youths--was a blunt and profound expression of defiance, unprecedented in the country's 55-year communist history.

The chief prosecutor of the UN war crimes tribunal broadened the list of charges against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Friday and left open the possibility he could be indicted on charges of genocide. In Belgrade, the Yugoslav prime minister and his Montenegrin allies resigned in protest over Milosevic's transfer to The Hague, plunging the country into fresh political instability that could force new elections. Milosevic, 59, extradited to The Hague on Thursday, spent his first full day in the tribunal's custody Friday and is expected to plead not guilty during his initial court appearance Tuesday.

The war between Yugoslavia and NATO now has reached its endgame, which is political, and concerns the terms on which the two sides will settle. Slobodan Milosevic has demonstrated far more skill at this sort of thing than anyone holding a position of responsibility in the NATO countries. One therefore expects the worst. We are in the endgame because NATO is unwilling to undertake a ground war that could succeed. It conducts an air campaign, which has proven indecisive and offers no promise of producing a decisive outcome within the limited time still available to the alliance.

So Slobodan Milosevic now sits, finally, in a prison cell in The Hague. After 10 long years and tens of thousands dead, it has come to that for him. Hustled away in the middle of the night by helicopter to the U.S. base in Tuzla in northern Bosnia and then ignominiously to the Netherlands international war crimes tribunal, his final humiliation was not unlike that of other dictators at the end of their rope (literally). One thinks of Mussolini, left to hang upside down by the Italians who had once so adored him, and of Ceausescu, hounded by his own Romanians until his execution.

After tense hours of watching and waiting, Serbian-Americans in the Chicago area on Friday cheered the end of the Slobodan Milosevic regime and welcomed the promise of a democratic Serbia and the chance to repair their nation's battered image. "Every single person of Serbian ethnicity, whether they're born here in the States or whether they're immigrants, is overjoyed," said Peter Babic, 36, of Morton Grove. Babic, who owns a print shop in Des Plaines, came to the U.S. from Serbia at age 5. "After everything this man has put the people through, I'm beyond words," he said.

`We are excited about our 75 new menu items. We want all of our families to come down and enjoy the Taste of Chicago.' -- Mayor Richard Daley, at a sneak preview Thursday of Chicago's biggest annual event. This year's food festival, June 25-July 5 in Grant Park, will feature the new "Kids' Dash" races for children and four new gourmet-dining restaurants. CHRISTY MONIOR, 17, ON WHY SHE WAITED OUTSIDE ROCKEFELLER CENTER IN NEW YORK CITY OVERNIGHT TO SEE LATIN POP STAR RICKY MARTIN ON NBC'S "TODAY" SHOW FRIDAY: `He's really cute.